Hitek Hot Rods
Focus: Restoration and customization of street rods, distribution of high-performance components for racing, street and off-road use.
Location: 2445 Neff Road.
Employees: Five full-time.
Sales: $100,000-$500,000 in 2008.
Plans: Expand the exposure and sales of the Corvette kit line.
One way the business sets itself apart: The way owner Marc Trzeciak treats employees. Trzeciak says he offers his employees 401(k)s and matches the first 5 percent of their contributions.
Source: Hitek
DAYTON — When you want a job performed well, sometimes you need to do it yourself.
Ask Marc Trzeciak, a local hand surgeon — and something else besides.
Trzeciak found himself established in a practice in the Columbus area when he wanted to have his 1967 Chevrolet II Nova beefed up.
He knew enough about cars to know that the shop he approached for the job sought to overcharge him.
“They knew that they had a lot of people (customers) who had open wallets,” Trzeciak said. “I think if they thought about your car in the middle of the night, they charged you.”
This perturbed Trzeciak enough to consider opening his own restoration business, which he did first in Lowell, Ind., in 2004, then in Dayton in May 2006.
“This was my dream to put this together,” Centerville resident Trzeciak said of his Nova.
Today an upper extremity surgeon with Orthopedic Associates of Southwest Ohio, Trzeciak also is sole proprietor of Hitek Hot Rods, a customization shop for muscle cars and street rods of all kinds.
And he pledges not to treat customers as he was once treated.
Ed Erb, a Kettering resident and Hitek customer, thinks that pledge was honored in his own experience with the business. He had Hitek supercharge his 1999 Chevy Corvette.
“He was very, very reasonable, all his pricing,” Erb said. “He was very up front about everything.”
Trzeciak recently showed a visitor a 1950 Mercury being restored in his hard-to-find, 4,000-square-foot garage off Neff Road, his shop’s home for three years. He proclaimed the car — whose chassis and entire body were separated at one point — as “one of our big projects.”
He showed off the artful welding joining old and new sections of the frame, pointed to how the restored car will have air bags, rack-and-pinion steering and a new suspension.
“I nicknamed this car ‘Frankenstein’ because it was looking kind of rough when it came in,” Trzeciak said with visible pride. “But you can see, it looks good.”
“This is what these guys really like doing,” he added, referring to his employees, whom he calls “artists.” “This is like the nuts and bolts — body off, re-worked suspension, frame, chassis, everything like that.”
Trzeciak emphasizes that the shop wouldn’t be possible without those skilled employees. Erb, a vascular surgeon, liked his own experience with Hitek, saying workers there were understanding when he was initially hesitant to leave his Vette.
Said Erb, “I liked working with the team up there.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
About the Author
